More than half of the nation's top business executives would vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in a general election, a Fortune magazine survey shows.
In the poll of Fortune 500 CEOs conducted last month and released Wednesday,
58 percent said they'd choose the Democratic front-runner, while 42 percent said they'd pick the GOP presumptive nominee.
"Big company CEOs tend to lean heavily Republican," Fortune reports. "But most of the 500 operate on a global scale, and many disagree with Trump’s proposals for raising trade barriers. Some also have been rattled by his stance on immigration, or by his comments showing little understanding of public finance."
In other findings:
- 69 percent of CEOs say increased regulation is one of the top three or four challenges facing their company.
- 49 percent say they expect the global economy to be "about the same" over the next 12 months as it has been in the last 12 months, 31 percent said it'd be better and 20 percent said it'd be worse, the poll finds.
- 70 percent say they expect to employ more people two years from now than they do today; 14 percent expect to cut employees, 15 percent expect no change.
The poll was emailed to all of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies; 14 percent — or 71 CEOs —completed the survey, while 16 of the 71 declined to answer the question about the presidential candidates, Fortune reports.